BONOKOSKI: Trudeau Liberals deny all meddling, but why wouldn’t they?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 in Ottawa. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

The pressure is on the Trudeau Liberals, if the flames of their arrogant sense of entitlement can be momentarily put in check, and their crown as the self-perceived but oft-cited Natural Governing Party of Canada knocked askew.

This is a party, after all, whose leader, and prime minister of this country, lives an unrelatable life on a trust fund, whose richy-rich finance minister somehow forgot he owns a villa in the south of France, and whose environment minister lectures us like school children over the air we exhale.

They can be ousted, of course, in October’s federal election. But, until then, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, senior members of his inner circle, and the party’s erstwhile justice minister and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, the first indigenous person to hold that portfolio, have some serious explaining to do on a very serious matter that has criminal implications.

Did they or did they not? Did Trudeau, or his chief of staff, or his principal secretary, direct or pressure Wilson-Raybould to ease back on the hardball prosecution of Quebec’s SNC-Lavalin, an international engineering and construction magacorp, on corruption charges that involved the shady and illegal business of greasing the palms of slippery Libyan public servants with millions of dollars to secure big-time contracts?

Well?

And why did Wilson-Raybould get the boot shortly thereafter, kicked down to the lowly portfolio of veteran’s affairs?

Did she refuse to melt under heat? Did she stick to her guns and refuse to insist the Office of the Prosecution go easy on SNC-Lavalin in order to make Quebecers more Liberal-friendly come the federal election?

Thus far, she has issued no out-right denial, so cast your own judgment.

Saying nothing does not help. In fact, it makes the Liberals look as guilty as sin.

Conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer, backed by the NDP, has called for an emergency meeting this week of the House of Common’s justice committee to question all and sundry in order to get to the bottom of this rather sticky but democratically-important matter — like Wilson-Raybould herself, Trudeau’s puppet master, Gerald Butts, his chief-of-staff, Katie Telford, the new justice minister David Lametti, the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, and anyone else with a sniff of involvement or knowledge.

Naturally there is a problem, the Liberals hold the majority on the justice committee and, without their approving vote, it’s a no-go.

Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer rises during Question Period in the House of Commons Wednesday, February 6, 2019 in Ottawa. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

Scheer said last week if the Liberals on the justice committee nuke this emergency meeting from the outset, the only conclusion that can be logically drawn is that it’s a coverup.

The bombshell allegations first levelled by the Globe and Mail, with unnamed Liberal insiders as the source, read more as truth than the prime minister’s assertion they are patently untrue.

The House of Commons is not sitting next week, however, so Trudeau and the rest of the players have a solid but convenient excuse to vacate Parliament Hill, either to their home ridings or to parts unknown.

Trudeau’s own itinerary, put out daily by the PMO, has him occupied by “personal” matters.

Meanwhile, Montreal MP, and now justice minister and attorney general, David Lametti has already told CTV’s Question Period, hosted by Evan Solomon, and pre-taped to air Sunday, that there is “no need for an investigation.”

The reason, he said, is because Trudeau said when first questioned about the Globe story that the allegations in it were “false” and, besides, “there is no collaboration there.”

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